


Subjective behaviour

by notveryhandy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Isolation, Other, Self Harm, Sleep Deprivation, Telepathy, self-destructive behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22864366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notveryhandy/pseuds/notveryhandy
Summary: The Master, and self-destructive behaviour. Also a hell of a lot of bitterness.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bolt_DMC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bolt_DMC/gifts).



> Thanks to Bolt_DMC for their awesome comments! First bit takes place at the party in Spyfall.

“You got anywhere?” Yaz asks, as he starts up another game. “I just thou - oh my _god_. What happened to your hands?”

He laughs at that. She thinks he’s human, still; this disguise is a good one. The Master looks at the various small scars covering his hands, and winces. This is why he wears gloves.

“Nervous habit, Yaz. Anxiety.”

Or the drums, back in the day. It’s a habit he still hasn’t gotten over, one he can’t remember picking up. He can remember, though, seeing his hands soaked in blood and watching, so many times, as the bleeding slowly ceased.

“It’s not so bad these days. I’m fine,” he says. “Seen worse, as a spy. You have no idea.”

Still. He curls his hands, stares at the cards in front of him. Tries to ignore Yaz.

It doesn't work. “I work in the police force,” she reminds him. “And those are some nasty injuries, O.”

He politely ignores her comments.

* * *

“When do we switch watch? You must’ve been here all night.”

The Doctor says it in a joking manner. It’s unlike this incarnation, what with the grim expression and haunting eyes. Maybe he’s trying to break the uneasy silence that had settled between them.

“Doctor, please. I’m not in the mood right now. Between the Daleks, and the Time Lords... somebody had to do the night patrol. I _have_ been up all night,” he says, disgruntled. Exhausted too, but he’s determined not to show that. Ever, preferably.

“You actually - really? That’s the most stupid thing you could possibly do! How long have you been awake?” he asks, sounding horrified.

“A few weeks. I haven’t slept. Then I won’t die. The Daleks won’t get me and I won’t lose. I won’t hurt more people.”

The Doctor stares at him.

“Even Time Lords can’t go that long without sleep, Master,” he murmurs.

_I know._

* * *

Ushas is not usually bored, but there are always exceptions. She seems to pick the most unfortunate days, though - Theta is not around, she can’t do any experiments (it’s not a school day), and Koschei - well.

She finds him in their dorm, reading a book. He’s on the same page as the last time she saw him, as bored as she is. Not in the same way, though.

“Koschei,” she says “where have you been?”

They don’t really have anything to do today, but it’s unusual to see him so... listless. Lifeless, almost, like an imperfect copy of a Time Lord. He avoids her gaze, staring at a book that’s she’s certain he isn’t reading. It’s worrying, frightening even. And so little scares her these days.

“Go, get out,” he says, and he’s struggling. His normally fierce and emotional voice is dull, monotone. Robotic. When he finally looks up at Ushas, she sees that he’s -

Sick? Not really, not in the physical sense. He’s not ill; she’d say he’s in perfect health, except he’s barely moving or speaking. Not doing anything.

She can’t see Koschei’s mind, but when she sends the psychic equivalent of a shoulder tap, he sends up a mental wall and pushes her straight out, which is effectively a kick in the groin. Except, of course, in her head.

Stupid telepaths.

* * *

This is Australia, his own personal library. On the Doctor. A whole, brilliant collection, all to himself. And then, of course, one of the humans wants to know about the Doctor. Stupid pets.

Well, if the Doctor won’t say anything, why can’t he instead? Win himself a favour with this grandpa - older than usual, the Master notes. Also not particularly stupid. It’s good when they aren’t _total_ idiots.

“You want to know more about the Doctor, you said? I knew them, back in the day.”

Graham - or maybe it was Greg - looks interested. Finally, a human with reasonable interests. Maybe he can hurt the Doctor, through this one.

* * *

Ushas gets her friend to class the next day, but Koschei is as distant as ever. He must have just showered, as his hair is lank and gleaming slightly. As with the rest of him, his hair has lost its lustre. Rather than a rich black-brown, it’s a dull charcoal and as drained as the rest of him. 

When they get to class, the teacher gets them to work immediately. It’s a telepathy lesson, which is... less than desirable. Not with Koschei like this, and Theta like Theta. But she wants good grades, so she works.

“Your go to initiate contact, Ushas,” the teacher suggests. “Why don’t you show me how you’ve improved? Koschei, prepare yourself.”

She groans. Not now, of all times. But what can she do? Run away? It’s not really a choice. She steels herself, and senses Koschei slip into her mind. He isn’t doing anything special; there is none of the flair or the pomp, no drama to his mind tricks. He’s just - there.

His mind is like cold steel, solid and smooth and unforgiving. When she tries to talk, his mind changes into an elaborate labyrinth of thorns.

She doesn’t think twice about leaving.

* * *

The human is - smiling? Yaz actually seems to like him. He looks round at his competitors, and places his next card. He can’t remember what game he was playing last, but this one - a card game, called rummy, is fun enough.

He’s still ignoring Yaz, she’s still giving him pointed looks. There’s sadness, too, as if she could feel sympathy for him. That’s amusing.

He laughs, and it’s easier than facing the fact that, for the first time in a long while, somebody human actually cares.

Smiling, the dealer discards a different card. “Rummy!” they say gleefully. He snarls, teeth bared on instinct. Bites his hand before he lets his anger get the better of him -

And stops, pauses. She’s looking at him again. Clever, clearly.

He doesn’t like it.

* * *

“Let me in!”

She's drumming on the door, urgent. The door is locked. Koschei must want to be alone. Well, Ushas can’t let that happen. Theta is panicking, and leaving Koschei on his own is... not good. Not like this.

She wrenches the door open, breaking the lock with a hidden vial of acid. The door hisses; the handle fizzles, and burns away. She scowls. Stupid boy, making her waste useful resources.

Entering the room with trepidation, she walks on tiptoes. No use in scaring her friend. “Koschei?”

_No._

The thought stabs through her mind, sudden and unwelcome. Ushas curses, and sends a dagger of a mental image flying at him. He cries out suddenly, wrenched from his mind.

He looks up, eyes dull, a silvery-blue metal which is a far cry from the usual vivid ice. Something in him is lost, just a little bit. Oh, he’ll return, but -

Koschei can't be left alone like this. Not again.

* * *

When Bill arrives at the Vault, Nardole is frowning. The Doctor isn’t in his office, or in his Tardis, and she has an essay to hand in. Right now, preferably.

“I wouldn’t go in there right now, unless you want your head lopped off,” he says.

“It’s overdue,” Bill mutters. “The Doctor will be angry if-”

“He’s angry enough as it is, Bill. But go ahead. Don’t say I didn’t war...”

Before he can finish, Bill enters the Vault, waving Nardole aside. It can’t be that bad, surely.

She walks towards the Doctor, preparing to apologise -

And then he’s in her face and people are yelling and she _cannot hear a word -_

It takes her a while to figure out what's going on. There’s the Doctor, gaunt figure and scruffy clothes, upright and angry. He seems almost urgent. The whole environment does, actually; there’s an undercurrent of tension she can’t ignore. There’s Missy, too, and she sees why he’s shouting.

Missy is no longer her normal calm and composed self; her frizzy hair is tangled and knotted and falling down her shoulders, her cheeks are red, and she is _furious._ It’s radiating off her in waves, as if her emotions are seeping into the very cracks of the Vault. It leaves the air vibrating and Bill anxious; it’s unsettling to the point that Bill feels almost sick.

And she’s screaming. Hands over her ears, eyes screwed shut, mad beyond belief. She’s attacking, a constant stream of insults hurled at no-one in particular, and yet Bill can’t help but pity her. She’s attacking, yes, but whenever the Doctor comes near her she flees, and she seems out of control.

The Doctor just looks tired. “Listen to me, Missy. Stop this. Just - try to redirect your anger. I know it’s hard. I know you can’t properly manage it, but you have to-”

“Fuck off. Doctor, fuck off! Get out, or I’ll kill you! I don’t care what you have to say, just _fuck off!_ ”

“Get out, Bill.” He sounds exhausted. “I’ll see you later.”

* * *

“I presume you want an explanation?”

Bill nods. She’s still rattled by this morning, still confused and scared and feeling like she’s been ripped apart. The Doctor sighs. “She’s struggling, Bill.”

“Yeah, I got that,” she mutters.

“The thing is, though... it’s difficult. Complicated. We’ve known each for a long time, and after leaving Gallifrey - well, we never last longer than half a year without these incidents. It’s hard for me, too. One of us gets angry, loses control... I’m not a good person, Bill.”

“So you’re, like, a criminal? I thought you were - you’re the Doctor!” she says.

“I’m not a bad person, either. Besides - since her execution, she’s not trusted me. Not the same way. Missy _hates_ feeling powerless. In the name, I suppose. But I couldn't kill her. Do you support the death penalty, Bill?”

“No,” she says. It’s probably a trick question.

“What if they’d erased entire species from reality? Destroyed - possibly - a quarter of the universe? Nothing’s ever simple, not the way you like to think it is. Humans... it’s just not the same. You can’t really compare us.”

The Doctor walks out, but his words don’t leave the room for a long time.


	2. False honesty, never before seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What colour is hate?” the Doctor asks. 
> 
> Before, he had made up lies. This time, standing in the ashes of his planet, he knows the answer.

“What colour is hate?” Theta asks, in the middle of the most boring lecture since Borusa taught sex ed. It’s yet another ridiculous question that Koschei can’t help but laugh at.

“Dunno. Pink, probably, ‘cause Ushas hates pink.”

A guileless fib to console his friend.

“But I love pink...” Theta moaned, as if he was actually taking this seriously -

Wait. This was Theta. Of _course_ he was taking this seriously.

“We can skip the next class,” Koschei offered. It couldn’t be more boring than this. He checked his schedule to see what lesson was next. _Thermodynamics in the seventh dimension,_ his timetable read. He was wrong; it _was_ more boring than this.

He hurried to the next lesson, and consequently forgot all about their last conversation.

* * *

The Doctor brings up the question again, of course. It does not really matter where they are, or what they are doing; they are the same people as they were, only not, and so everything is identical and utterly wrong.

“What colour is hatred?” the Doctor asked.

“Hatred and hate are hardly the same thing.”

The Doctor stood up, spinning a sonic screwdriver around idly. “If that is true, then answer me this: what colour is hate?”

He paused. It’s not a question he thinks about often. “Black, I suppose.”

Black holes, desperation, no Doctor in sight. Yes, that sounded about right. A false honesty, polite and restrained. What a delightful paradox.

* * *

The Doctor was not one for jokes and half-answers, and therefore here they are, locked up in a prison cell... wondering what colour hate is.

“I have decided...” he began, and then trailed off. “That is, I have come to the conclusion that-”

“That what? Get on with it, Master. We haven’t got all day.”

“ _You’re_ the one who asked a stupid question, not me,” he snapped.

“It’s not a stupid question!” the Doctor said hotly.

“Then you won’t mind if I take my time, will you? _Anyway._ I believe that you are asking the wrong question. Hate is not a colour, at least not in our sense of the word. It is a concept. Concepts don’t have colours.”

A candid fraudulence, as far as these things went.

The guards entered their cell before the Doctor could say another word. But as it turned out, the Doctor had fixed the transmat. He vanished from the cell, leaving the guards confused, only to rematerialise right next to him. The Master smirked, and grabbed his hand to initiate telepathic conversation.

_You’re losing your touch, my dear._

* * *

The Doctor lounged back in his chair, relaxing in the Vault. “What colour is hate?” he asked.

It’s an all-too-familiar question. But this time, she had an answer prepared. Ish. It wasn’t perfect...

But it was better than most. “Brown,” she said, not looking at the Doctor.

“What shade?” he asked, “and is this about our past regenerations?”

She shrugged. “All of them.”

It was the only answer she could think of right then, but oddly fitting nonetheless. A sincere deception.

More sincere than the Doctor’s feigned laughter, at least.

* * *

The Doctor looked at him with those sad puppy eyes which begged innocence she didn't have. He laughed at her almost distraught face.

“What have you _done?_ ” she breathed, shocked but maybe in awe, just a little bit. She never did like Gallifrey, home of corrupt and ancient monsters.

He might be a murderer, but at least he wasn’t a typical, high-and mighty Time Lord.

“Are you going to explain your actions?” she asked.

“Of course.”

There was nothing more to be said. The Doctor, though, must have felt there was, because she said (as she always did), with abject curiosity, “Do you think you know the colour of hate now?”

“Yeah. Frankly, I can’t believe I missed it. It’s the colour of Gallifrey.”

Hate equals Gallifrey. An equation, as these things so often are. Two plus two is four, hate equals Gallifrey.

“Why? Why would you - I don’t understand. You never would have done this before-”

“Before? Before _what?_ ” he spat.

“The Vault. Or have you already moved on? I had hoped you might have improved, but no. Same old, same old.”

“The Vault? Gods damn you, I barely know who I am, let alone my history-”

He broke down sobbing, because he hadn’t realised that until now, how lost he was. No idea when he’d regenerated, where he’d come from, who he was. And the Doctor saw fit to just _ignore_ that? Throw decisions he couldn’t even remember making in his face?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t-” 

Of course she didn’t. She never did. It was all just a game, really. But the thing is, that statement was a moment of sudden honesty from the Doctor. Almost remarkable.

And he thought, long and hard, about what she’d said.

A truer lie had never been spoken. 


End file.
